This planet is a terrarium orbiting the sun. The flaming star casts a million terawatts of energy upon us each day. Earth has been given all that it needs. We will either thrive, or render this terrarium useless. We make our own destiny. It is insanity to let big conglomerates dictate the condition of this planet. And, it is cowardice.

Each fracking leaves approximately 4.5 million gallons of water sequestered beneath the earth – taken out of the water cycle – never to be replaced. For every 420 horizontal frackings, the equivalent of the Huntsville Reservoir is polluted and left underground (1.9 billion gallons). Water that has touched the lips of our ancestors, now gone from the equation.

Oh, we may see it again, but next time as a spoiler of our diminishing clean water supply.

The Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition is here today to protest the drilling for natural gas in Luzerne County. We have studied the impacts of natural gas extraction by deep well drilling and hydraulic fracking in the Marcellus shale and other deposits throughout our country and recognize the inherent risks to our local environment. These risks challenge not only the quality of life for the populated Back Mountain area through disruption of our roads, air and water quality, but this activity poses an unacceptable risk to the fresh drinking water supplies of the people of the Wyoming Valley from West Pittston to West Nanticoke and all of the towns in between. The gas companies have received a permit to drill in Lehman Township, that is only 1.7 miles from the Huntsville reservoir and the county commissioners want to drill in Moon Lake Park that is less than ½ mile from the Ceasetown reservoir. Both of these fresh water dams and aquifers supply drinking water to over 80,000 people in the Valley. The majority of people in our county will not reap the financial benefits from this drilling but will be taking on all of the risks. We want to say to EnCana gas company of North America, and any other gas company seeking to exploit our area, we do not want you disturbing our communities, polluting our air and water, damaging our roads, decreasing our property values, and dividing our people. We ask you to leave. We also want to stand up against the larger issue that communities are told they have no say in what happens in their townships and local ordinances are superseded by the state. We the people, hereby declare our right to decide what types of activities we choose to allow in our communities and how to regulate them. This right to self-govern is inalienable and what American democracy is all about. If you feel that your rights to self-determination are being violated and are against allowing our beautiful county to be turned into an industrial zone littered with hazardous chemicals, our air disturbed by lung damaging fumes, and quality of life all negatively impacted by natural gas drilling, then join us in stopping this activity and asking our legislators to do the same.

By way of Susquehanna River Sentinel here is an enlightening article by a scientist, Robert Howarth, who is the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University He is an “internationally known expert on environmental issues and water quality”. (article source:)

But go ahead and listen to light weight politicos like Urban, Rendell, and Cheney. All they ever see is their own political interest. None of them ever had an original thought which went beyond manipulation. Go ahead and ask one, “Hey Dick, give me an original solution.” Guaranteed it will be ideological, self-serving, transparent, and tired.

Read and think:

Natural gas is marketed as a clean fuel with less impact on global warming than oil or coal, a transitional fuel to replace other fossil fuels until some distant future with renewable energy. Some argue that we have an obligation to develop Marcellus Shale gas, despite environmental concerns. I strongly disagree.

Natural gas as a clean fuel is a myth. While less carbon dioxide is emitted from burning natural gas than oil or coal, emissions during combustion are only part of the concern. Natural gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas with 72 times more potential than carbon dioxide to warm our planet (per molecule, averaged over the 20 years following emission). I estimate that extraction, transport and combustion of Marcellus gas ? together with leakage of methane ? makes this gas at least 60 percent more damaging for greenhouse warming than crude oil and similar in impact to coal.

The most recent method of hydro-fracking is relatively new technology, massive in scope and far from clean in ways beyond greenhouse gas emissions. The landscape could be dotted with thousands of drilling pads, spaced as closely as one every 40 acres. Compacted gravel would cover three to five acres for each. New pipelines and access roads crisscrossing the landscape would connect the pads. Ten or more wells per pad are expected. Every time a well is “fracked,” 1,200 truck trips will carry the needed water.

Drillers will inject several million gallons of water and tens of thousands of pounds of chemicals into each well. Some of this mixture will stay deep in the shale, but cumulatively, billions of gallons of waste fluids will surface. Under current law, drillers can use absolutely any chemical additive or waste, with no restrictions and no disclosure. Recent experience in Pennsylvania indicates regular use of toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances. Out of 24 wells sampled there, flow-back wastes from every one contained high levels of 4-Nitroquinoline-1-oxide, (according to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation). It is one of the most mutagenic compounds known. Flow-back wastes also contain toxic metals and high levels of radioactivity extracted from the shale, in addition to the materials used by drillers.

Industry tells us that surface and groundwater contamination is unlikely, since gas is deep in the ground and drilling operations are designed to minimize leakage. Nonsense. The technology is new and understudied, but early evidence shows high levels of contamination in some drinking water wells and rivers in other states.

Accidents happen, and well casings and cementing can fail. The geology of our region is complex, and water and materials under high pressure can move quickly to aquifers, rivers and lakes along fissures and fractures. Flow-back waters and associated chemical and radioactive wastes must be handled and stored at the surface, some in open pits and ponds unless government regulation prevents this. What will keep birds and wildlife away from it? What happens downstream if a heavy rain causes the toxic soup to overflow the dam? What happens to these wastes? Adequate treatment technologies and facilities do not exist.

What about government regulation and oversight? The DEC is understaffed,underfunded and has no history with the scale and scope of exploitation now envisioned. Federal oversight is almost completely gone, due to Congress exempting gas development from most environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, in 2005.

We can be independent of fossil fuels within 20 years and rely on renewable green technologies, such as wind and solar. The constraints on this are mostly political, not technical. We do not need to sacrifice a healthy environment to industrial gas development. Rather, we need to mobilize and have our region provide some badly needed national leadership toward a sustainable energy future.

Lead into the sustainable, organic, regional-centric economic future? Nah… let’s go back to the mines, the usury, the elitism… it makes perfect non-sense… and so the fools continue to rule us…

On Wednesday, March 31 st, the Dallas United Methodist Church is sponsoring a public information meeting from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on the process of gas drilling which is coming to this area. Speakers from the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition (formerly the Luzerne County Citizens for Clean Water) and NoDrill NEPA will address issues such as the community impact of the drilling industry here and elsewhere. Also presented will be local legislative and township initiatives presently in progress and how you can help. An open discussion will follow.

Article I of the Pennsylvania State Constitution, Sec. 27:

The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.

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Energy Independence???? Look up in the fracking sky!!!!!
Pennsylvanians should be manufacturing and installing solar, wind, geothermal and the like. We ought to make each home as sustainable and independent as possible.
We need to retool America. And it ought to start right here.

"However, when we realized all our neighbors had signed and we were surrounded by leased land – we finally gave in and signed. Now seeing what has happened I would gladly return the money if they would pack up and leave. I consider it dirty money."
- Susquehanna County lessor